Ilwaco Shoreline, 1903

If you are interested in local history, especially the history of early Ilwaco, Community Historian Michael Lemeshko and the Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum are offering you a fabulous opportunity!  Walking tours of historic Ilwaco beginning in May!  (Lest this information be misleading, I do believe it is the same tour, offered on various dates for your convenience.)  Here is what the CPHM website says:

The tours will be held on the 3rd Saturday of the month from May through September rain or shine. They begin at 2 pm (meet in the Museum’s parking lot) and will last approximately 1 1/2 hours. Each tour is limited to 15 people. You must reserve your spot by calling the Museum at 360-642-3446. The tours are $5 per person, with proceeds supporting the Museum. All participants will be required to wear a safety vest which will be provided.

Mike Lemeshko, September 2016, on the publication of his first book!

The walking tours, led by Michael, will focus on early events and locations  important to the founding of Ilwaco through 1899. As they walk through the areas where Ilwaco had it’s (sometimes) boisterous beginnings, participants will learn about Hayden’s Cove Saloon, the Ilwaco Wharf Company’s Pier, and Finn Hall .  Much of the information is as yet “unpublished” and is the result of Michael’s diligent research for his next book which is about B.A. Seaborg, founder of the Aberdeen Packing Company and Ilwaco’s most successful (and,  perhaps, most controversial) early entrepreneur.

The tours should be a real treat — especially given Michael’s uncanny ability “to find where the bodies are buried” — both literally and figuratively.  It was while he was writing his first book — The Cantankerous Farmer vs. The Ilwaco Railway & Navigation Company and the rest of his neighbors on the Long Beach Peninsula – about Judge John Briscoe (a contemporary of Seaborg’s) that he formed “The Friends of the Briscoe Burying Ground” to take care of a small grave in a field north of Long Beach.  Since then… discoveries have been made!

And no telling what he’s uncovered in his research in Ilwaco.  Sign up for one of his tours and find out!  Perhaps I will see you there…